History
Associated Artists
Associated Artists was founded in 1948 by Eliot Hyman. It handled
syndication of around 500 films, including the
Republic PicturesRepublic Pictures and
Robert Lippert libraries, but soon both companies entered television
distribution. It also served syndication for
Monogram PicturesMonogram Pictures and
Producers Releasing Corporation.[1]
In 1951, Hyman sold the company to David Baird's Lansing Foundation,
then to the startup company Motion Pictures for
TelevisionTelevision (MPTV),
where Hyman served as a consultant. Hyman also became a partner in
Mouline Productions, the producers of Moby Dick, while financing and
producing other films and TV projects.[1]
Associated Artists Productions
In July 1954, Hyman launched another TV distribution company which
used the Associated Artists name, Associated Artists Productions, with
the purchase of the syndication rights to the Universal Sherlock
Holmes films from MPTV.[1] His son Ken served as vice-president.
Associated Artists ProductionsAssociated Artists Productions also acquired distribution right to
Johnny Jupiter, Candid Camera, 13 Artcinema Associates feature films,
37 Western films and 3 serials.[1]
In 1956, the company was recapitalized and its name was changed to
Associated Artists ProductionsAssociated Artists Productions Corp. (a.a.p.).[citation needed] Lou
Chelser's PRM, Inc. closed the purchase of the entire pre-1950 library
owned by
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Pictures[4] in June 1956 for $21 million with
a.a.p. and its theatrical subsidiary Dominant Pictures handling
distribution sales.[5]
a.a.p. also purchased the
PopeyePopeye cartoons from Paramount Pictures,
which had been produced by
Fleischer StudiosFleischer Studios and Famous Studios, in
June 1956.[6] This purchase and the
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. cartoon package
combined gave a.a.p. a library of over 568 theatrical cartoon shorts,
which would be staples of children's television for many years.
By December 1957, control of a.a.p. had gone to New York Supreme Court
between the parties of a.a.p., National Telefilm Associates, and
Harris minority shareholder group.[7]
United ArtistsUnited Artists Associated
The company was acquired by
United ArtistsUnited Artists (UA) in 1958, with UA
borrowing the full amount $27 million from Manufacturers's Trust when
a.a.p. shareholders needed cash quickly. The a.a.p. purchase did come
with the uncollected accounts' receivable amount around the purchase
price.[8] The resulting division was named
United ArtistsUnited Artists Associated,
Inc. (u.a.a.). u.a.a. made a deal to distribute Beany and Cecil
internationally. With the twin kids syndicated packages of Looney
Tunes/
Merrie MelodiesMerrie Melodies and Popeye, u.a.a. took a look at a number of
shorts in the a.a.p./pre-1950 WB library that appealed to kids and
packaged them in a third group known as The Big Mac Show, which has a
cartoon wrap around.[9]
Distribution rights
The material a.a.p. bought from
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Pictures included all of
its features produced and distributed by
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. prior to 1950
(
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. retained the rights to two 1949 films it only
distributed), and also included was the film Chain Lightning (produced
in 1949 and released in 1950). Also included were the live-action
short subjects released prior to September 1, 1948.
The cartoon library included every color
Looney TunesLooney Tunes and Merrie
Melodies short released prior to August 1, 1948, and all of the Merrie
Melodies produced by Harman-Ising Productions from 1931 to 1933,
except
Lady, Play Your Mandolin!Lady, Play Your Mandolin! (1931). The remaining black-and-white
Merrie MelodiesMerrie Melodies made from 1933 to 1934 and the black-and-white Looney
Tunes were already sold to Sunset Productions. Former Warner cartoon
director
Bob ClampettBob Clampett was hired to catalog the Warner cartoon library.
Film archive
In 1969, the
United ArtistsUnited Artists Corporation presented to the Library of
Congress the earliest surviving preprint material from the pre-1950
film library of
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. (including First National library). The
collection contains 200 silent features (1918–29), 800 sound
features (1926–50), 1,800 sound shorts (1926–48), and 337 Looney
Tunes and
Merrie MelodiesMerrie Melodies shorts (1931–48). While consisting largely
of
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. releases, the collection includes nearly two hundred
sound features released by
Monogram PicturesMonogram Pictures Corporation between 1936
and 1946 and 231
PopeyePopeye cartoons produced by
Fleischer StudiosFleischer Studios and
Famous StudiosFamous Studios released between 1933 and 1957. Most motion pictures
exist in the original black-and-white/Technicolor camera negatives.
The Library is converting the nitrate film to acetate safety stock and
has obtained reference prints for seventy of the better known Warner
Bros. features, such as
Gold Diggers of 1935Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), High Sierra
(1941),
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain GangI Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), The Jazz Singer
(1927), and Little Caesar (1930). There are no
United ArtistsUnited Artists films
(such as
James BondJames Bond and The Pink Panther franchise; these are owned by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) in the
United ArtistsUnited Artists Collection. The early
synchronized sound
VitaphoneVitaphone shorts are lacking accompanying sound
discs.
This is a large collection of nitrate negatives and masters, which are
still undergoing transfer to acetate stock. Most of the safety film
copies exist only in the preservation master stage, limiting
accessibility for viewing and duplication. Some years ago, LC obtained
16mm prints (though many are television prints, flat in picture
quality and occasionally edited) for pre-1950
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. features
(among the most popular of all American films). Additional prints have
been added to the collection, ranging from "reject fine grain master
positives" (copies made for preservation but deemed inadequate)
suitable for reference use, to high-quality 35mm prints reserved for
theatrical projection.
United ArtistsUnited Artists also donated 16mm prints of most
of the
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. and Monogram films to the Wisconsin Center for
Film and Theater Research, such as My Four Years in Germany
(1918),[10]
Conductor 1492 (1924), Midnight Lovers (1926) and Joe
Palooka in Triple Cross (1951).
Titles and holdings are listed in the various M/B/RS catalogs. There
are a number of published reference books on
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. films.[11]
Copyrights are still in effect for most of the films in this
collection; a donor restriction also applies.
United ArtistsUnited Artists has
passed through various hands, but current ownership of this material
resides with
Turner EntertainmentTurner Entertainment Co.
Ownership of properties
Metro-Goldwyn-MayerMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer purchased
United ArtistsUnited Artists (along with the a.a.p.
library) from
Transamerica CorporationTransamerica Corporation in 1981 and became MGM/UA
Entertainment Co.
The rights to Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope, originally
distributed by
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. (with MGM) and later copyrighted by UATV,
reverted to the director in 1968. Distribution rights were later
acquired by
Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures in 1983.
Turner Broadcasting SystemTurner Broadcasting System (via
Turner EntertainmentTurner Entertainment Co.) took over
the library in 1986 after Ted Turner's short-lived ownership of
MGM/UA. When Turner sold back the MGM/UA production unit, he kept the
MGM library, including select portions of the a.a.p. library (limited
to the
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. films and the
PopeyePopeye cartoons), for his own
company. The 1936-1946 Monogram films were not included with the
purchase, and thus some of these films remain with MGM.
The
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. film libraries were reunited when Time Warner, the
studio's parent company since the 1990 merger of
Time Inc.Time Inc. and Warner
Communications (formerly Kinney National Company), bought Turner in
1996. Turner retains the copyrights to the former a.a.p. properties,
while Warner handles their distribution.
UA originally leased video rights to their library (including the
a.a.p. library) to Magnetic Video, the first home video company.
Magnetic Video was sold to
20th Century Fox20th Century Fox in 1982, becoming 20th
Century-Fox Video. In 1982, Fox and
CBSCBS formed CBS/Fox Video, which
continued to distribute the UA/a.a.p. library under license from
MGM/UA Home Video until the rights reverted to MGM/UA. After Turner's
purchase of the MGM/UA library, MGM/UA Home Video continued to
distribute the films on video under license until 1999, when the
rights were transferred to Warner Home Video. Laboratory in Brooklyn
to Consolidated Labs in N.J. thus avoiding the New York sales tax on
the purchase. Subsequently the negatives were split up between several
labs in the NY area including DuArt, Mercury, Deluxe and CFI. Each lab
made new acetate 16mm internegatives and re-recorded sound tracks.
Some of the color films were in Technicolor and, as was Technicolor's
policy, they held the 3 color negatives and mage prints. TV stations
used 16mm prints for their telecasting and each lab made the prints
for the titles they held.
These same prints would be the ones used on pre-1999 VHS and laserdisc
releases of former a.a.p.-owned films. The a.a.p. versions of these
films were also later used for cable television broadcasts (even as
recently as March 2011, a.a.p. prints of WB cartoons have been seen on
TV). Early releases of WB films released between 1918–1931 bore an
a.a.p. copyright renewal notice, since these renewals came before the
UA purchase.[12]
In the 1990s, Turner began removing the a.a.p. logos from many of the
films (although this process started before that by both UA and local
television stations). One hundred twenty-three of the Warner Bros.
cartoons purchased by a.a.p. were restored from their original
negatives for inclusion in Warner Home Video's series of six Looney
Tunes Golden Collection DVD box sets. Several more WB cartoons
formerly owned by a.a.p. have been restored for other
Looney TunesLooney Tunes DVD
releases since 2010. The black and white
PopeyePopeye cartoons (and the
three Color Specials) were also restored from their original negatives
for a series of three
PopeyePopeye the Sailor DVD sets.[13]
Subsidiaries

a.a.p. Records, Inc. was a music arm of a.a.p., which distributed the
Official
PopeyePopeye TV Album.
United Telefilms Limited was the Canadian division of a.a.p., which
existed around the same time. Live action films used a variation of
the main a.a.p. logo, but the initials "UTL" would be spelled out, and
a notice at the bottom said "Distributed in Canada by United Telefilms
Limited".

UT Records was a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
Tel Records was another subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.
Warwick Records was also a subsidiary of United Telefilm Records.

Dominant Pictures Corporation was a subsidiary of a.a.p., which
distributed the features that the company purchased to theaters. It
re-released a number of films from the pre-1950 WB library, as well as
a number of British films which a.a.p. bought the rights to. Dominant
also sold and/or leased 16mm prints of WB library titles to
non-theatrical rental libraries. The subsidiary was later folded into
UA's main theatrical distribution arm after the company was sold to
UA. Some pre-1931 WB library is considered lost.